


into the mist

by queen_edmund_pevensie



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28653837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_edmund_pevensie/pseuds/queen_edmund_pevensie
Summary: Iroh leaves with Zuko - because he's a coward, because he has nothing left to lose.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	into the mist

Iroh knew he would have to retreat from Ba Sing Se eventually. One moment, when he broke through the outer wall, he saw his future – the Firelord who finally conquered the Earth Kingdom. But it came too late, or too soon. He is an old man. His only son is dead. They are beaten back outside the city. Two swift blows in one.

His return home is so different than he thought it would be. Solitary and sad, after so many years away. It’s been nearly two years at the walls of Ba Sing Se, and months since he surrendered.

***

Zuko is not the same since his mother left. He is quieter and more serious.

Because: “I’m going to be Firelord someday.” He ducks his head. Zuko was never meant to be Firelord. Azulon, Iroh, Lu Ten. But Lu Ten is gone, and much of Iroh went with him. And he has his _mother’s_ gentleness, and her spark.

Iroh wraps his arm around Zuko’s shoulders. “And you will be a great Firelord too. Perhaps the best in a hundred years.” This makes Zuko blush furiously, but when Iroh looks into his nephew’s clear eyes, he knows that it is true.

***

_He wants to act like a man – then he can be one._ Ozai had never been patient or forgiving. These qualities had been strengths in their youth.

_He is_ not _a man._ Somewhere Zuko was getting his burn tended to. In another hour he would be gone, on a quest his father knew was impossible.

_Why don’t you go with him then, Old Man?_

Bandaged and terrified, Zuko sulks on the ship deck, his knees drawn into his chest, staring at the horizon. Iroh watches too, the Fire Nation disappearing into the mist. Neither know where to go from here. 

***

Iroh leaves with Zuko – because Iroh is a coward, because he abandoned his country when he fled Ba Sing Se, because he loves Zuko like he is his own son. 

Zuko is stronger than he was before, but he hardly knows his own strength.

“Firebending is not rage, Prince Zuko,” Iroh reminds him, leading him outside, ignoring the smell of smoke on their clothes. “It is energy and life.”

“I am not angry,” Zuko lies. He practices the forms Iroh shows him with rigid ferocity.

“Me neither,” Iroh agrees with a wink. “That is why we are both great firebenders.”

***

When the Avatar reappears Zuko’s hunt intensifies. He hunts him obsessively, the child monk who won’t trade blows with men twice his size. Iroh thinks they all have a lot to learn from the last of the air nomads. 

“Why don’t you rest, Prince Zuko?” 

They nearly captured the Avatar while he was learning waterbending with his friends. His laughter echoed for miles. Zuko still in his wet clothes, studies maps in the war room, replica of the one in the palace. “Even the Avatar has –”

“The Avatar is a child.” The map in Zuko’s hands crumbles to ash.

***

He knew that he would return to Ba Sing Se, but his plans are so different with Zuko in tow. A tea shop on a quiet corner and flowers on the windowsill. Zuko grows his hair out, and spares his uncle the rare smile. They are safe in Ba Sing Se, among countless refugees, fleeing the long arm of his brother.

The Avatar is here. Iroh has known for months.

“I could go home!” Zuko insists, clutching the flier of the Avatar’s bison.

But Iroh knows, that Fire Nation is no home to people who have lost what they have.

***

Zuko turns his back on him and goes home a hero.

Iroh returns to the Fire Nation as a traitor and a fool. He is an old man. An unseated prince. A traitor.

The only thing that has mattered to him since Ba Sing Se is Zuko. He would spend the rest of his life in chains for Zuko.

Zuko sends the guards away, kneels in front of him, clutches at the bars of his cell, and Iroh cannot say a word. His nephew, folded over himself, ashamed and angry.

_“I am a hero,”_ Zuko tells him. _“Not like you.”_

***

When he wakes, he can hear Zuko’s breathing behind him. Iroh sits and waits for Zuko to speak, his back turned.

The last time he saw Zuko, his nephew was angry and indignant. He was righteous. He looked like his father in his youth.

Which version of Zuko is here now? The version the Firelord has molded him to become, or the man that Iroh knows his nephew to be? There are moments in life that cannot be rushed, no matter what Iroh wants.

“Uncle…” Zuko’s voice is small, shaking. “I’m so–”

That is more than enough for Iroh.

**Author's Note:**

> as far as i know, like, these are all exactly 100 words each.


End file.
